


Discoveries

by toushindai (WallofIllusion)



Series: Business & Pleasure [1]
Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: (it's multiple encounters and Meg takes a minute to get with the program), Aftercare, Arranged Betrothal, Awkward Sexual Situations, BDSM, Cunnilingus, F/M, Femdom, Kink Discovery, Masturbation, No Aftercare, Porn with Feelings, Under-negotiated Kink, Whipping, oh good that's a tag.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:08:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23498776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WallofIllusion/pseuds/toushindai
Summary: Hades may have forced Zagreus and Megaera together, but it turns out they do have at least one thing very much in common.
Relationships: Megaera/Zagreus (Hades Video Game)
Series: Business & Pleasure [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683346
Comments: 22
Kudos: 196





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Never fear, not all of my opinions have been transferred to the canon-times. Here's some more pre-canon Zagaera!

Despite what her so-called fiancé might think, Megaera does not _enjoy_ this. It would be far more accurate to say that she dreads it: Lord Hades growling at her that his son has wandered off somewhere _again_ and, in the process of ordering her to go find the little brat, implying that the only possible reason for Zagreus’s truancy is her own lack of dedication or ability. Never mind that Hades himself clearly has no control over the prince despite having dealt with him longer. Now that they are engaged, Megaera is supposed to magically know how to make Zagreus behave himself.

So she is in a poor mood when she tracks Zagreus down in the courtyard outside his chambers. He is practicing sword drills by himself, brow furrowed in concentration as he corrects his own form—which would be thoroughly admirable were there not five dozen contracts waiting for his review and signature indoors.

“Zagreus,” she calls out, her voice cold and commanding. Predictably, he ignores her. With a bit of almost-accidental footwork, he turns his back on her and continues his training. But turning away is a mistake. With a flap of her wing, she propels herself through the air to the space behind him and seizes him by the nape of the neck. “ _Zagreus_ ,” she says again. “You have work to do indoors.”

With a growl, he fights free of her grasp and wheels to face her, his sword still raised. “I’ll _get_ to it,” he snarls. “I’m in the middle of something else.”

“You’ll get to it _now_ ,” she insists. “Your father—”

“I don’t care what my father wants. If that isn’t obvious by now, I can’t help you, Megaera—”

That does it. Seizing him by the front of his chiton, she shoves him back against the wall, hard, and holds him in place with her forearm across his shoulders. “You had damn well better learn to care,” she hisses, her jaw tight as she stares down at him, “or I will shove you off that blasted balcony and _if_ you survive the fall, you’ll be in Tartarus, where Nyx’s power won’t save you from my whip.”

He meets her glare as she looms over him, and she watches him swallow. Angry tension burns in the air, but she has him speechless, which is the beginning of a victory, at least—

Until suddenly the quality of his glare changes. His eyes widen in something that looks like panic and he pushes Megaera’s arm aside, turning away.

“Sorry, Megaera, just—” His voice is strained. “Just give me a moment.”

“What?” she snaps. But he doesn’t respond, only sheathing his sword and then smoothing down the front of his tunic as a deep flush creeps up the back of his neck. A thought occurs to Megaera, and she narrows her eyes in disbelief. A faint heat rises to her cheeks, too. “Wait, did you—did you just get hard?”

“No,” he answers, but too quickly, and without the shocked indignation that might have backed up the denial. He remains facing away.

“You got hard,” Megaera concludes. “From—what? My leaning over you, criticizing you? From the threat of punishment?”

His shoulders are up around his ears. “Megaera, please, this really isn’t helping the situation.”

Which is a yes, likely to all that and more. Megaera folds her arms as she stares at his back. “Hmph. You little pervert. …Does your father know you’re into that?” It’s a disturbingly relevant question, and blast Lord Hades if that was why he had inflicted her, in particular, on his son.

But the prince splutters in answer, looking over his shoulder with a mixture of mortification and horror in his eyes. “Does my father— _why_ would my father know that? Why would he—why would I—he does _not_ , and I’d _really_ prefer to keep it that way.”

Megaera only arches one eyebrow, watching Zagreus as his horror slowly overtakes his mortification and then as it turns to dread. Just as she’s about to relent, he opens his mouth again. “Megaera, please, I’ll do whatever you ask if you—just—don’t tell him about this.”

She narrows her eyes. “It’s not really a sacrifice if you’re getting off on it,” she points out. But then she shows him mercy. “He won’t hear it from me.”

Finally his shoulders drop back into place. “Thank you,” he says, voice strained again.

Megaera remains silent as he works to reclaim some shred of dignity. She is trying to understand what just happened: not why _he_ suddenly scrambled for distance, but why she went after him. Some part of her is buzzing in response to a game of push-and-pull that she had made no conscious choice to play. She’d only seen a target and pursued it, and felt the satisfaction of toying with it once she’d hit her mark. Enjoyment. She’d enjoyed that.

Zagreus exhales shakily, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “OK,” he says. “I’m better now, I’m—sorry about that, Megaera, that was inappropriate. I don’t mean to, to objectify you or anything like that.”

Megaera scoffs. “It’s fine,” she says. “You couldn’t objectify me if you tried.”

“Mmph,” he grunts, and the back of his neck turns scarlet again. “Well, you’re probably right about that.”

She wants to keep playing.

Zagreus is, perhaps, not the only person acting inappropriately here.

Megaera inhales and exhales quietly through her nostrils. “Zagreus,” she says, and he turns to look at her. Well, half-turns. “Unless you’d like to pick up our little spat where we left off, maybe we should part ways for the time being.”

He swallows; she sees his throat bob up and down. “Yes, that’s probably best.” His brow furrows. “Are you… angry?”

She shakes her head without a word.

“OK. Just… I am sorry about that, I didn’t mean for it to happen. If you want to talk about it later, we can—we should probably do that.”

“Later,” Megaera says. “You should probably go cool down.”

She should, too, but she doesn’t say it. She only watches his hasty retreat and silently, slowly, begins to put her circling thoughts in order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you hear me last time I said "gray-ace Meg whose sexuality only really shows up in kink contexts"? Now I am saying it a second time. I will continue to say it, the headcanon doesn't change.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn’t remember, later, what set it off—he was being vaguely annoying, maybe?—but all of a sudden Megaera hisses, “Come with me, _now_.” Her hand wraps tight around his upper arm and she marches him out of the public space of the lounge, down the hallway, to his bedroom. He objects once during the process, but something about the look she sends him makes his voice stick in his throat and—no. He must be imagining this, right? But something about her eyes makes his body buzz.

Once in his bedroom, she does not release him; she forces him back against the wall and holds him there, and it’s rapidly getting harder to put one thought after another. He should not have spent all that time daydreaming about… this.

“Megaera,” he says, and he can’t hide the way his voice quivers a little and part of him doesn’t want to; he wants her to hear it and—oh, this is very bad, if they don’t—if he doesn’t sort himself out immediately this could get very bad. “You—I’m sorry to bring this up again, but you do remember what… happened, last time we wound up like this, don’t you?” 

“Of course I remember,” she says, and that look in her eyes doesn’t change, and something too—too selfish to be believed occurs to Zagreus then. The thought makes him weak in the knees, and pliable, and all too aware of force with which she holds him in place and the way her nails are slightly digging into his arm. He tries to catch his breath.

“Forgive me for asking, but…” he starts, and now his voice just sounds strangled and she raises one unreadable eyebrow and it sends a shot of heat straight through him. He tries to ignore it and tries again to speak. “Are you doing this on purpose now?” 

A pause that has his heart pounding and a flush creeping up his face. Although that’s nothing compared to what happens when she answers, bluntly, “Yes.” 

She releases his arm, then, but doesn’t step back by much. Zagreus still feels cornered. Still feels suffocatingly turned on. He means to ask her why she’s doing this, why the sudden interest in toying with him like a puppet on a string, but she speaks again before he can put the words in order.

“Turns out I like seeing you squirm like this,” she tells him. “And I think you like it too, judging by your attitude. And other things.” 

She glances down once, takes in the incriminating evidence between Zagreus’s legs, and meets his eyes again. He’s bright red, now. “I’m sorry,” he says, trying to mean it but not managing much more than an embarrassment that makes his body hum the same way as all the rest of this.

Megaera snorts. “Why sorry? I just told you I like this. You can’t even string two thoughts together when I treat you this way, can you?” 

“Megaera,” he protests weakly.

“You should see yourself,” she says, and for a moment the smugness fades out of her voice, replaced by something closer to… wonder? There’s almost an air of confusion to it. “Truly, this look on your face is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.” 

He swallows—closes his eyes to try to shut her out. It doesn’t work. He can still feel the faint stir of her wing in the air, can still imagine the focused fire in her golden eyes burning him up. “Are we… doing this, then?” he asks, trying to keep his voice steady, and he thinks of all the reasons they shouldn’t: his father’s shadow looming over them both, the fact that she got a pay raise just for the dirty work of _interacting with him_. Those aren’t bad reasons to take it slow or to defy altogether, even, the greedy debilitating rush of his blood. But he can’t keep them in his mind, no matter how he tries. 

He opens his eyes again, to see if Megaera’s having any more luck with it. It’s hard to tell: her face is deliberately blank, the wonder and the predator’s keenness tucked away somewhere. “What do you mean by ‘this’?” she asks.

He doesn’t know what he means, he doesn’t know what he wants _first_ and what he wants in the end is far too forward to say, never mind the way his hard-on makes it obvious. He needs something neutral, something innocuous—

“I’ve wondered if you would ever consider whipping me,” is what comes out of his mouth, unthinkingly, and that is neither neutral _nor_ innocuous; Megaera rears back, an instant of surprise on her face giving way to anger.

“Don’t mock me,” she snarls, her attitude entirely different, a resonance between the two of them that Zagreus had hardly registered abruptly gone. He stumbles over his next words.

“I’m not mocking you,” he says, “I swear I’m not, Megaera. I’ve been…” He meant to keep this to himself, but she looks wary enough to leave and if he’s telling her _any_ of this then he wants her to be able to believe him. “I’ve been thinking about you, and that particular thought kept coming up, and to test whether it’s actually something I’d _like_ or whether I’d lost my mind entirely, I’ve been… hitting my legs, with a leather cord, when I’m, erm… alone in bed.”

And he’s never come so hard in his life as he did the first time he tried that. He still has faint bruises there, green-tinged lines across his thighs, and whenever he brushes against them by accident it sends a thrill of memory through his body. He likes pain. He likes pain _like that_. And here he is, forced into a relationship with a deity of vengeful torture, not hating her nearly as much as he meant to at the start.

He can’t read Megaera’s face, still. But some of the cornered anger seems to have faded from it. She grits her teeth in a scowl. “Whatever you’re doing to yourself, it’s nothing compared to what I could do to you.” 

“…Um.” A wave of hot desire floods him and his stomach flops over. 

“You don’t believe me.” 

“No, I do,” he says. “I swear I do, I just… want that.” She remains suspicious. He tries again, distantly aware of what a ridiculous sight he makes right now but determined that she should understand him, take seriously the feelings that he has newly discovered. “You’re the one who doesn’t believe _me_ , Megaera. How can I prove to you that I want this?” 

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, I can believe that you _think_ you want me to whip you. You just have no idea how much pain I can inflict.” 

Oh, gods, please yes. “Then show me _,”_ he says.

Her hand shoots out and she seizes his jaw, driving his head back against the wall. A yelp escapes his throat, and his blood is suddenly rushing, but instead of the fear he should be feeling all he can make out is his body crying _yes yes YES_ —

“You don’t know what you’re asking for,” Megaera tells him, her voice cold and her eyes intense.

He inhales shakily. “Fair point, but… I want to.”

For the length of three breaths, Megaera holds his gaze. Then she releases him.

“Fine,” she says. She reaches to the holster at the small of her back and takes out her whip. “If you think you’re so sure, then strip to the waist and brace yourself against the wall.”

The air goes out of him. “Really?” he asks, stupid with anticipation. She sends him a glare, and he doesn’t ask again. Instead he unpins his chiton at the shoulder with trembling hands and lets it fall over his belt. He nudges a stack of books and assorted knickknacks aside with his foot so that he has space to stand.

When he puts his hands against the stone, it warms under his palms immediately. He’s hard. He wants this so badly.

“I’m ready, Megaera,” he says. He glances once over his shoulder to see her glaring at him and prepping her lash, and looks forward at the wall again. His heart is pounding in his throat. “Thank you.”

“We’ll see if you still thank me after this,” she sneers, and she hits him.

The shock of a hard shove and then all the sensation in his body rushes into a line of _fire_ down the center of his back. He doesn’t realize, for a moment, that he’s choking on his own breath. That his legs have gone feeble. The lash is a fissure splitting him open and his conscious mind is driven deep into the bottom of it with the pain surrounding him on all sides.

Far away, he hears Megaera scoff. “See?” she asks, and her scornful certainty is what he needs to claw his way back to sense. The pain is pain; it’s _just_ pain. It’s just something that’s happening to his body, and he can take it. He can _prove_ that he can take it. He can ride it out and he can hold the energy that it sends rushing through his blood and let it power him. He turns his head to look at Megaera again, and the movement stretches the welt down his back, and it sends a new pulse of fire through him and this time _he wants it_.

He speaks, a low rasp to his voice. “Another.”

She stares at him, incredulous and insulted. “You’re not serious.”

“I am,” he says. The feeling is shifting now, still coming from that single burning line but radiating outward, too, a low sting seeping into his muscles. “I told you, I want this.” 

“I’ll hit you harder,” she threatens.

And for a moment a wave of fear curdles his stomach, but he masters it and pushes it out of the way. Fear is for the weak. He has no reason to be afraid of the pain she offers, and in exchange his body will hum like this, greedy for touch and sensation. He can take whatever she has for him. “Do it,” he says. 

She narrows her eyes. “Face forward.” 

He does, and the whip hits him again. This time, he hears it whistling through the air in the instant before the strike, and the anticipation answered swiftly by the impact sends a shock through him. Again the pain opens wide to swallow him up, and he feels it pass through his body, and then without warning Megaera strikes him a third time. He chokes out a ragged sound, dizzy and deep inside the pain now. His back burns as he hopes for a fourth strike. But Megaera waits.

“You really are serious,” she says, amazed.

He shudders involuntarily and makes a muffled groan of affirmation. Every cell of his body is alight, the lines down his back most of all, and desire is pulled tight in his groin in an urgent insistent focus that the pain only feeds. He has never felt so present in his body before.

Megaera clicks her tongue, and then speaks in a low tone. “Do you want more, Prince Zagreus?”

The sound he lets out in answer is some kind of whine. He tries to remember how to… words. How to… yes. Yes, he wants more. Desperately, hungrily, he—

Another lash. 

A dry, wheezing gasp escapes him and now he can’t even distinguish between the lines on his back anymore. The pain is everywhere, throughout his body, soaked heavy into his mind. When she hits him again, this time it’s only that blunt impact like before and it sends a jolt of _not_ -pain through him and he moans, trying to catch his breath. He is swollen full of pure _sensation_. Shaking, he pulls one hand from the wall and reaches for the bulge between his legs because he _has_ to, because it’s all he _can_ do—

Sharply, from behind him: “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

He has himself in hand but he stops, his mind trying to surface, because—she’s angry? Is she angry? Is she—was he supposed to get permission, for this, is this some kind of violation or is it only the natural—it felt, it feels natural, he’s still clutching his cock through his leggings as his back screams with pain and it would make _so much sense_ to thrust into his own touch.

“Megaera,” he says, his mouth clumsy around the sounds, and he doesn’t know what he means to say from there. 

“Get your hand away from yourself,” she orders. “Did I tell you you could do that?” 

He pulls his hand away from his cock, flexing it with frustration before putting it back against the wall. He needs, he _needs_ , more purely than he ever has in his life, and here she is stopping him, and he feels… something other than resentment. Something taut and anticipatory inside of him. 

“It’s not up to you,” he says, but his voice is too rough to imbue it with cocky defiance and it comes out sounding more like a question.

Megaera scoffs. “You demand that I whip you, and then you think you can just jerk off in front of me?” 

“I…” But this is _part_ of the whipping, or feels like it, and he did say that, didn’t he? That he’s been self-inflicting what he can when he touches himself, she shouldn’t be surprised—

“Turn and face me, Zagreus.” 

He obeys; the cold confidence in her voice seems to leave him no other option. Unthinkingly, he tries to lean against the wall to affect casualness, but it sends a furious jolt of pain through the marks on his back and he jumps and stands up straighter. For a split second, Megaera’s face crinkles with amusement. Then it goes serious again as she looks at him, her eyes lingering on his face for a long moment before traveling down his body, over his bare chest and to the all-too-clear bulge in his leggings. As she observes, it sinks in what she must be seeing: he’s flushed, and dripping with sweat, and every time he tries to pull himself together his mouth drops half-open and his eyes start to unfocus again. He’s a mess. And _she_ did this to him, and she knows it. 

She takes a step forward and his body jerks as a shot of desire passes through him. Again that amusement crosses her face before she chases it away with the same imperious expression as she first cornered him with. 

“Do you really want to get off that badly?” she asks in a tone that matches her face. 

Yes, _gods_ yes he does, but even with his head a little clearer than it was a moment before, he can’t tell how she’s asking. Is she teasing him as she did when she dragged him in here, toying with his hopelessly blatant desires, or is she disgusted? Does she want him to stop? Or beg for permission? 

But then she steps forward once more and rests her fingertips on his abdomen, and he twitches with need. He grits his teeth and breathes heavily through his nose, trying to stifle the instinct to plead with her: not for the permission to touch himself but for her to touch him. “No,” he chokes out, though he’s forgotten the question she asked; and when his mind pulls it back up, a moment later, he knows that it’s the most obvious lie he’s ever told. 

Megaera agrees. She raises one eyebrow at him, her attitude mocking once more. “Really?” she asks, obviously disbelieving him; giving him a chance to retract it. But he can’t think of the words to do so. Her fingertips on his stomach somehow take up as much of his attention as the fire spread across his back does, and together they drown out all other thought. 

A torturously long pause, Megaera not breaking eye contact with him. Then her face changes and she takes a step back. “If you want to come, you have to earn it. Service me first.” 

He blinks. “I… really?” 

“Yes, _really_ , Zagreus.” She hitches up her skirt and undoes the laces of her leggings. When he moves to unlace his as well, she scoffs. “Absolutely not. You’ll use your hands.” 

“…Ah.” He flushes, and hurriedly tries to forget the images that had bloomed in his mind for a moment, though they make his cock throb. He looks at Megaera; she’s waiting with a skeptical glare turned his way. Clearing his throat, he admits, “I’ve… never done this before.”

She sneers. “Better learn fast, then.” And when he hesitates still, she reaches for his right hand and pulls it insistently between her legs, palm up. “Come on.”

“Right, OK…” He takes a deep breath, heart pounding with simple nervousness, and tries to focus his attention. Gingerly, he traces the landscape at his fingertips: soft, warm skin, wiry curled hair, and—” _Oh_ ,” he murmurs in surprise. “Megaera, you’re—”

“Finish that sentence and you get nothing,” she interrupts sharply. 

He falls silent, glancing at her face; it’s pinched and stern but he thinks he sees a hint of a blush on it. So he doesn’t finish what he was going to say. It’s _true_ , though: the space between her legs is unbelievably wet and slick. He presses a little more firmly, exploring, but his fingers glide over the surface of her skin all the same. She breathes out, heavily; he wonders if that’s a good sign. Her face provides no hints. She looks away rather than meet his eyes.

When he comes to a spot that gives slightly under his touch, he looks again to her expression for—permission, he supposes, but all she does is swallow and meet his eyes briefly before looking away again. So he presses in, and two fingers slide into her, the passage made easy by her wetness. Inside, she is hot and slicker still, her inner walls a low pressure against his fingers. Slowly he begins moving them in and out of her, as if they were—well. Heat gathers at the base of Zagreus’s cock as he half-imagines it.

But he makes sure to watch her, too. Megaera’s lips part slightly as he touches her, and again he has to assume that that’s a good sign—at the very least, he has to assume that if she didn’t like it, she wouldn’t be shy about telling him so. She hasn’t been shy about all the rest of this. About overwhelming him, about leading him and assuming that he’ll follow without any need for negotiation. An hour ago, if anyone had asked, he would have studiously denied interest in her, so certain had he been that the feeling was one-sided and for its one-sidedness inappropriate and presumptuous. Now he has two fingers buried inside of her, and when he tries to trace his other hand up her torso she bats it away with a swift glare, and her hips are twitching slightly as he probes her sex. And it makes his heart pound. Something within him wants to learn the shape of her desires—her demands. He wants to show her how well he can answer them. He wants to please her, as much as he wanted her to whip him. The two desires are intertwined.

But it’s only a few minutes later that she grasps him suddenly by the wrist. “You are _terribl_ e at this.”

He flushes, stilling the movement of his fingers and feeling very unpleasantly _observable_. “I’m… sorry?” he says. “Give me a break, Megaera, it’s the first time I’ve ever—”

“Get your hand out of me,” she orders rather than listen to his apology, and tugs on his wrist. Though she doesn’t release him once he’s pulled free. Instead she cups her hand around the outside of his and holds it close between her legs. Her fingertips press his onto her skin. “ _This_ is where I want to be touched. Do you feel it?” 

“…I… yes.” There’s something there, a raised nubbin of flesh like a bead, and he can feel Megaera buck slightly as she guides the pad of his middle finger in a circle around it. He does the same thing again, without relying so heavily on her guidance, and she shivers.

“Good,” she mutters. “Keep doing that, then.” 

He does, watching carefully her reactions. When she makes a half-swallowed sound, he feels a flicker of pride. He can _learn_ , even completely new skills like this one. He lets the subtle movements of her body guide his slow exploration, and feels like he’s accomplishing something. 

Except that apparently he still isn’t up to her standards. A few minutes later she scoffs and steps backwards out of his touch. “Enough,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “Do you want us to be here for _hours_?” 

And instead of inviting him back in, she reaches her own fingers between her legs with a slow breath out. Zagreus can see at a glance that she is working herself much faster, much more confidently. The confidence was what he lacked, then—which, of course he did, but he could fake it, if that’s what she’s looking for. He almost opens his mouth to ask for another chance. He wants to touch her, be part of what she is feeling; the desire to _be_ touched is pulsing within him but he’d gladly finish her off first, if that is how this new thrumming game between them is played. But she ignores him entirely, now. Her hips jerk inconsistently as her wrist moves with a smooth, rapid rhythm and before long her breath catches in her throat with her climax. She holds herself taut. With her eyes shut, she pants for a moment, and when she opens them again her shoulders drop back into place and she is composed. She fixes Zagreus with an impassive stare.

“Give me a towel,” she orders, and—oh, he’d just wiped his hand off on his leggings, but yes, he supposes that’s a better idea. He goes to his open trunk and roots through it, past a half-dozen articles of unfolded clothing, until he finds a towel he can offer to her. She takes it without a word and wipes down her hand, and between her legs, and Zagreus swallows as he remembers anew how wet she felt.

It occurs to him, too late, that he should maybe be looking the other way, and she catches him staring. She lifts her chin. “Well, Prince Zagreus?”

His face heats; he doesn’t even know why. “Well what?” he answers, and he doesn’t quite manage the cavalier, winning tone he was aiming for. 

“Well, do you think you get to come after your poor performance?”

The breath goes out of his lungs, and he is suddenly all too aware of how hard he still is. Megaera’s stare is unflinching as he stumbles over a response. “I… didn’t realize that question was based on performance,” he says, his mouth dry. 

“I told you to service me. I wouldn’t say you managed that.”

He stares, mouth hanging half-open, and tries to figure out what, exactly, he can say to that. What exactly he’s _feeling_ about that. Horny, obviously, and half-indignant that she’s declared herself in charge of this particular question, but—only half. The other half of him is _mortifyingly_ willing to let her call the shots. 

“I think I deserve a few points for effort, at least,” he says. 

“Hmph.” She breaks eye contact to pull her leggings back into place and re-lace them. When she looks his way once more, she seems to have made up her mind. “Kneel,” she says, “and you can have what you want.”

His whole body feels flushed. The pain in his back is only one part of the whole now, only one of the ways his skin buzzes with greed for touch. He swallows hard and tries— _tries_ to hold out. “Why would I kneel for _you_?” he asks, and he manages a real note of defiance in his voice—

—And it barely even matters, because when she tosses her head and answers, “Because I said to,” his knees go weak of their own accord. Zagreus shudders with desire, his cock straining inside his leggings. Megaera takes one step closer and he takes a half-step back, his heart pounding, but when she reaches out and grasps his hair and yanks down, that’s all it takes to send his knees crashing to the floor. He doesn’t attempt to rise. He only stays there, looking up at her and _wanting_.

“May I, then?” he asks in a wavering voice.

“Go,” she answers curtly, and releases his hair. 

At last, he pulls his leggings down and lets his cock spring free. The relief of simply wrapping his hand around himself is enough to wrest a faint moan from him, and then each quick stroke has him bucking against the air, overbalancing. He leans back, puts his free hand on the floor; looks upwards to see if Megaera will protest. She only watches him with judgment and possession in her eyes, and that—that _look_ —something about that look makes all of this hotter, makes him hold her gaze as orgasm builds and builds inside him. He stops trying to fight against her dominance. He stops _thinking_. He only jerks himself off, letting the feeling crawl up his spine and fill his lungs and pool as heat behind his eyes. This—all of this. The pain and the look she sends down at him and the way he’s kneeling at her feet, all of it.

Climax hits him like an _explosion_ , bursting out of him all at once with a wordless cry. It leaves all his thoughts blown to pieces for what feels like—minutes, or hours. He can only breathe, his body twitching with aftershocks, and stare at his come where it’s landed on the floor in front of him, mere inches from Megaera’s pink-painted toenails.

Finally he pulls himself together well enough to tilt his head back and look her in the eye again. She’s looking down on him, still, but there’s something softer in her stare now. He pulls his lips into a loose grin, panting. “Wow,” he says, the only response that really makes sense here.

“Hmph,” she answers, utterly inscrutable. He can feel her gaze tracing over him, can tell there’s something analytical and methodical behind it. But whatever it is, she doesn’t share it. She only tosses her head one last time. “I’ll see you later, Zag,” she says, and then turns away and leaves his room without another word. 


	3. Chapter 3

Megaera wants to believe that she is more mature than to flat-out avoid Zagreus after their little… encounter. She left him there, still kneeling, because they were done: because there was nowhere further to go after he brought himself off at her feet. She’d retreated to her own chambers to think in private, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And she hadn’t intended to head out to Tartarus so soon thereafter, either; but after a mortifying conversation with Nyx in which she’d had to explain why she’d pulled out her whip in the House, she’d practically begged to be put on the duty schedule, and Nyx had obliged, and—

It’s true, honestly, that she’s pursuing time away from Zagreus. Avoiding him.

But it’s equally true that he is not her only responsibility. For a fortnight, she does her _real_ work. She keeps Tartarus under control. She tortures its wretches, who actually understand that pain is bad. She watches them cringe as she raises her whip and doesn’t feel a debilitating swell of desire.

…Though when she remembers the prince, it’s a different story.

Even by the end of her shift, she’s no closer to understanding why this, why _now_. She has never felt this kind of desire before. Sex is for mortals, and for the petty Olympians and all the rest of the surface gods. Not for a Fury. Not for a harbinger of retributive vengeance. She tries to believe that something in her has only gotten confused—that she only meant to bring him to order, as is her talent and her duty, and his obvious want had permeated her like an invasion. But the feeling is still _in_ her, out here, and when she thinks too long about how he’d bucked into his own touch with his eyes locked on hers, she finds herself growing distracted and restless in a way that demands to be addressed.

When she returns to the House, she’s inclined to ask for another shift immediately. But when she seeks out Nyx to request such, Nyx tells her, “The prince is looking for you, daughter.”

And she says it to imply _so I would ask that you see him without delay_ , and Megaera stifles a sigh and gives up on the thought of retreat.

“I’ll see him,” she promises, but she does not withdraw from her surrogate mother’s presence. Instead she stands, consumed by discomfort and indecision. “Nyx,” she says, “do you think this is… foolish? Or inappropriate? I can put a stop to it, if need be. I know it’s not what I’m supposed to be doing with him.”

Nyx reaches forward and touches her gently on the arm. Realizing how tense she is, Megaera makes a conscious effort to relax in response to Nyx’s encouragement. Nyx gives an approving smile as her shoulders drop into place and her wing unfurls. “You will find that the two of you know better than Hades does what path your relationship should take. I would urge you both to continue to be patient and gentle, and you will discover for yourselves how best to care for each other.”

It sounds too simple to be true. Megaera wants to protest that Nyx doesn’t understand the driving resonance the two of them have stumbled into, the structure that has snapped shut around them like a snare trap. There is nothing patient or gentle or caring about it.

But she doesn’t have the words to explain what she feels without humiliating herself, so she thanks Nyx for the advice and departs to find the prince.

*

By the time she reaches his room, it has occurred to her that he may want to see primarily for more of the same, and the way he fidgets under her stare only seems to confirm the thought. Her lips twitch in a frown. He doesn’t get to just summon her for an illicit liaison like a king calling for his concubine. If he thinks he has that right, she’ll leave him wanting.

(Although the thought alone of leaving him desperate for her awakens a twinge of something in her body, and Megaera swallows a sigh of irritation. Somehow all of this has shaped itself into a game, the rules of which she seems to know without ever having learned them. It seems improbable that Zagreus has stumbled upon the same rules, and yet—)

He takes a deep breath and Megaera returns her attention to the present, to the reality of standing in his bedchambers waiting for him to say what he wants. There is something awkward and constrained to him. When he speaks, a hint of red creeps up the back of his neck.

“About… last time,” he says. “I think we should talk about it, if you wouldn’t mind. There are two things I wanted to say, and then I wanted to know what you think, too.”

…Oh, somehow this is _worse_. She had expected to find him horny and thoughtless. Instead he wants to talk through all of this absurdity. It’s better behavior—more mature, certainly—but it leaves Megaera feeling wrong-footed.

“Go on, then,” she says stonily.

Zagreus cracks the knuckles of his left hand, then his right, before he speaks. “So, the first thing I want to say is that I really enjoyed it,” he says, his voice even but tight with embarrassment. He turns truly red as he continues. “All of it, really, your attitude and the whipping and everything else. I got carried away, and by the time I realized I hadn’t said thank you, you had already headed out, so… I wanted to say it now. Thank you, for that.”

Megaera only stares. He’d said he had two things to tell her. Zagreus searches her face for a moment, but when he finds no hint to how she’s feeling, he takes a deep breath and goes on.

“All that said, I don’t… want you to feel pressured into any of it. I know you weren’t planning on whipping me, and I think it’s my fault things escalated as quickly as they did. So if all of this isn’t something you’re interested in, if I took it too far last time, anything like that, I wanted to apologize and tell you that I won’t ask it of you again. I’m sorry.”

Megaera narrows her eyes. “You’re apologizing?”

“Yes,” Zagreus says, anxiety obvious in his voice.

She considers him. Behind her expression she feels a surge of defensiveness. She had not expected him to spare much thought for her side of things, given the circumstances of their relationship. And until these recent experiences, he has been defiant and annoying. Why does he choose now—when they’ve uncovered this coincidence of interest—to suddenly flinch from his stubbornness and start groveling? She doesn’t like it. She much preferred his frantic, futile scramble not to be overwhelmed by desire.

But apparently he wants to make this awkward now. Curse him. Megaera rolls her eyes and stares him down. “Zagreus, what the hell makes you think I wasn’t interested?”

She doesn’t say it playfully, and the exasperation in her tone seems to both startle and worry Zagreus. “I—don’t know,” he says, suddenly fumbling his words again. “I just wanted you to give you a chance to say so, if we’d moved too fast last time—”

“I dragged you in here and barely gave you the space to string two thoughts together, and you think _you_ might have pressured _me_ into it? Don’t be ridiculous. Your apology is rejected.”

“I…” Zagreus blinks. “You mean, because it isn’t necessary?”

“Yes.”

“…You seem angry now, though.”

She is, although she doesn’t know why. It’s something to do with the way he’s feeling his way forward word by word, compassionately, where before he’s been cocky and standoffish at best. She does not need to be treated like she’s fragile. She does not need him to delicately work around her.

But before she can put any of this into words, Zagreus sighs heavily and runs a hand through his hair. “Look, Megaera, I just want to make sure we were on the same page. It seemed like we were, but I’ve never felt that kind of connection with anyone before, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t imagining it or assuming anything of you. Does that… make sense?”

His anxious hesitation has given way to something heavy, now—a sense of defeat, of having done something wrong. And it’s… familiar, almost. Megaera knows all too well the stench of regret, though the wretches she tortures do not combine it with the vulnerability the prince wears now. She doesn’t know how he can stand to be so sincere in this place, in his father’s House.

But maybe, here, she does not have to be part of what beats him down for it.

With a breath out, Megaera puts her anger at arm’s length and admits, “It makes sense. This is all new to me, as well.”

Zagreus’s brow furrows. “Wait, really?”

He’s more incredulous than he has any right to be and now Megaera is annoyed again. “Yes, really.”

Realizing what he’d asked, he holds his hands up conciliatorily. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—I just—you seemed like you knew what you were doing.”

She hadn’t—and she doesn’t—but she isn’t going to spell that out for him if he hasn’t caught on. Instead she asks, “Who would I even have experience with in this place?”

“I don’t know,” he says. He waves a vague hand as he tries to come up with a name. “I guess Thanatos, maybe?”

“ _Eugh_ , absolutely not.”

That seems to surprise Zagreus. “Wait, what’s wrong with Than? I like Than.”

“Than is fine. I don’t dislike him. But I’m not attracted to him.” The thought of taking Death Incarnate to bed is—no. He’s too sour, too guarded. He and Megaera may get along, but she can’t imagine that he’d ever willingly slip into the pliant state that Zagreus seems so prone to, and trying to make him would be an exercise in frustration.

“Huh.” Zagreus considers this revelation, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes. Megaera raises one eyebrow and meets his gaze. Is it so surprising that she wouldn’t be attracted to Thanatos? Perhaps it surprises Zagreus, specifically, because he himself finds Than attractive, and with that thought in mind Megaera readies herself to… do something. Something defensive and superior. But then Zagreus defies her expectations by cracking a smile and leaning forward slightly, mischief in his gaze. “Does that mean that you _are_ attracted to me?”

Megaera lets out her breath in exasperation and tries to ignore the faint prickle of heat in her face. “Less so when you insist on asking such stupid questions,” she snaps.

Zagreus remains cheerfully unrebuked. “More so when?”

Megaera scoffs, momentarily without a response. Which is fine by her. Let him squirm trying to figure it out, trying to earn her interest—wait. No. Why is she suddenly itching to see him squirm again, dammit?

Glaring at the prince in such a way that would have her victims in Tartarus wailing on the spot, she asks, “Are you flirting with me, Zagreus?”

He straightens, embarrassed to be caught out. “Erm… yes, I think, slightly.”

She scoffs again. That would be why, then.

“Should I stop?” he asks, apologetic.

“If you don’t want to wind up pinned to the wall again, you’d better.”

“Well, um…” He swallows. His carefully cultivated composure is falling to pieces and he makes a valiant effort to rescue it. “To be honest, winding up against the wall again is… very much the point of the flirting, actually, Megaera, but it was a sincere question. If you want me to stop, I’ll…”

His babbling dies off as she takes a single step towards him. Damn him. Damn the sudden obviousness of his desire and the way it pulls Megaera in like a lodestone. She could fight it, if she needed to, but at this exact moment she can’t think of any reason to do so. She is close enough to take him by the chin; she lifts one hand as if to do so, and a moment passes with electric tension in the air. Then Zagreus’s posture shifts almost imperceptibly: toward her, not away. So she seizes his jaw between her thumb and forefinger. A shock of chemical excitement pulses through her, originating where her skin meets his, and she feels him jolt as if the same thing happened to him.

“I’ll ask you again,” she says, her voice slipping into a cadence that implies control and mockery and malice and—delight. “What the hell makes you think I want you to stop?”

Somehow he still mistakes it for a sincere question, the little idiot. “I just don’t want to get this wrong,” he says, his voice faint and vulnerable.

“Do you think I’m so weak-willed that you could bully me into this if I didn’t want it?”

He shakes his head, not firmly enough to dislodge her grasp. “No.”

“I trust you to be the obstinate little brat you are if I push you too far, and I expect you to trust me in the same way. Understand?”

He nods without speaking, entranced.

“Do you want this again, Zag?”

“Yes,” he breathes.

And she does, too. Fine. _Fine_ , then.

“Get down on your knees.” She lets a smirk come to her face. “ _That_ , I find attractive.”

Last time, he fought it, and she’d forced him down; that had been satisfying in its own right. But this time, he hesitates for only half a breath before sinking down to the floor, and that’s even better. Megaera’s heart begins to pound as she looks down at him, at the yearning and awed gaze he sends back up at her.

“Good,” she says, and his jaw moves as he swallows.

She releases his chin, takes a step back. Walks around him so that she is directly behind him, out of his line of sight—or at least she would be if he didn’t turn his head; she sends a reproving glare his way, and he hurriedly faces forward again.

And then she takes the time to collect her thoughts. Both the thoughts generated by the present moment—images rushing through her head, her muscles nearly twitching with potential and with want—and those that she had considered during her spare time out in Tartarus. She has thought through this, in a measured way. She can act in a measured way. He will wait, if she makes him do so.

She places one finger against the spot where his neck meets his back, and he shivers. “I’m guessing you want to be whipped again,” she says.

Zagreus breathes out heavily. “I do, yes. But…”

“But what, Zagreus?”

He will ask for gentler treatment than last time, she supposes; he may be a pain-seeking fool, but he must have his limits.

That isn’t what he says, though. He sends a glance over his shoulder at her and then looks forward once more. “I was hoping that you might give me another chance to try to, er… service you, first.”

She is glad he is looking away and cannot see her flush in surprise. “Another chance?” she asks, skeptical.

“I know I didn’t do a very good job last time—”

“You _really_ didn’t. What makes you think you can do any better now?”

He twists towards her once more, chipper. “I’ve been doing research! It turns out there is _quite_ a lot of pornography in the library if you know where to look.”

She stares at him. “You think reading pornography in the library counts as _research_ , Zag?”

“Well, it’s the best I’ve got,” he answers, unbowed by her scorn. “Unless you’d like me to ask someone else in person—”

“If you dare, I will _kill you_.”

“I didn’t think so,” he says, with a hint of amusement in his tone. “So, pornography it is.”

She grabs the top of his head in one hand and turns it forward again. “It’s still worthless,” she says, venomous. “Mortal pornography is tedious, perverted nonsense written by men too stupid to please the women they claim to know best in their lives. If you’ve learned _anything_ of use from it, I will be amazed.”

“Then give me a chance to at least try to amaze you,” he insists.

She stares down at the crown of his head. “You are so stubborn,” she says acidly. But the fact of the matter is that if they are going to do this more than once, she’s going to need him to figure this out. She wants him, for whatever inexplicable reason. Trying to deny that has achieved nothing. So he had better learn to meet her desires. She walks back in front of him and then stands there, her head tossed back. “Then, fine. Let’s see what you can do.”

A moment passes before he realizes that she’s ordering him to take care of the whole process, including undressing her. Once he understands, though (“Oh! Um, let’s see here…”), he’s quick enough to slide her skirt up and pull her leggings down to her metal garters. Megaera gives a slight shiver in spite of herself. The air is cool, but his hands are warm—warmer than her own—as he massages her thighs slightly. He glances upwards once, and she grants him no hint in her expression. So he begins to explore her.

He is less hesitant than last time. Though, he is less direct as well: he should remember where she told him to touch her, but it seems like he avoids it on purpose, instead stroking her outer folds steadily. It occurs to her a moment later that he may be right to do it this way. It stokes embers of anticipation into a low, glowing flame inside her, and each touch fosters a desire for more touch. She can feel her heart pounding in her chest.

When he actually, finally, slips one finger between her folds and into the wetness gathering there, the feeling is so sudden and she is so ready for it that Megaera bucks a little. She catches herself on his shoulder; and he seems to take this as a deliberate signal to him; he looks upwards.

When she has nothing to say to him, he speaks instead, haltingly. “Megaera…?”

“What.”

“I… was wondering,” he says, “if you might let me try using my mouth.”

Megaera’s skin heats and she drives the expression from her face instinctively as Zagreus holds her gaze. It is too embarrassing, the thought of Zagreus’s head between her legs—at least, it should be—but it’s not embarrassment making her heart race. The image of clawing her hand against the back of his head to hold him in place while he pleasures her—it’s not embarrassment that she feels about that.

Still.

“If you do it poorly, we’re done here,” she warns, her voice haughty. Let him see it as a sign of scorn and dominance. He doesn’t need to know that this is a risk, that she is teetering on the edge of mortification and only allowing this because he has managed to find, without her guidance, something that she wants on a deep and instinctual level.

He breathes in and out again, eyes still trained on hers. “I understand.”

“Come on, then.”

An awkward negotiation of bodies and space follows: he shuffles forward on his knees and cranes his neck back, but that’s premature because it turns out he needs her to widen her stance for proper access, and he almost tips over at one point and has to seize her legs for balance and that almost causes _her_ to trip, and all of the fumbling reminds Megaera of last time, of the inept way he drove his fingers into her until she lost patience. This, she tells the rushing tide of desire within her sternly, is not likely to be any more fruitful than that. Neither of them know what they’re doing, here.

She believes that entirely—and so the softness of his tongue when he lifts it to her sex knocks her breath out of her. He is touching her with his fingers still, spreading her folds so that he can lick her, and his tongue trails from her entrance to her clit and back with a slowness that makes it impossible to tell or care whether he is being hesitant or deliberate. Either way, it is not skilled; she feels not only his tongue and lips, but also his chin and nose bumping around down there in ways that don’t seem intentional. When he opens his mouth wider to suck on her skin there is a hint of teeth for a moment, followed by a mumbled _sorry—_. But even without particular finesse, this—this is good. There is something intimate and enticing about it. She looks down at him, at the top of his head pressed flush between her legs over clothing only half-removed, and the sight makes her breath hitch.

He pulls back at some point to look at her face, nervously. “Megaera, is this—”

“Don’t stop.” She takes him by the hair and pulls him back in, forcefully, and she expects resistance against her arm to indicate that she has no right to make that particular demand. But there is no resistance. Only a surprised grunt that’s muffled against her skin, and a renewed vigor in the way he sucks on her. Megaera shudders. Climax is building within her, because of this. Because of _him_. Her spine is taut with the effort it takes not to roll her hips against his mouth, and when she gives in and lets it happen, Zagreus moans. He, she realizes in an absurd moment, may be enjoying this as much as she is.

It’s not the best release she’s ever had, when it comes; it’s a low, unsurprising crest and an easy dissipation and her breath catching in a quiet sound. But _he_ has brought her to it, rather than it being a product of her own hand, and that is why she is flushed when she pushes him back and pulls her skirt down. He looks up at her, concerned, but then understanding blooms on his face.

“Megaera, did—did you—”

“Yes,” she interrupts bluntly, rather than letting him finish his sentence. She feels—exposed, in a way she did not intend to be. She feels taken apart and then put back together with some soft foreign substance muffling her joints, her thoughts. And Zagreus is looking up at her, still on his knees as he wipes her arousal off his chin, and there is faint wonder and pride on his face. Beneath his chiton Megaera can see the vague shape of a hard-on. She grits her teeth.

“Get me a towel,” she says, because that worked last time.

He gets to his feet and hurries over to his trunk, though again he must dig through several layers of unfolded tunics before he can find something for her. Then, once he’s handed her the towel, he takes a step back and—after just a flicker of hesitation—sinks down to his knees again without being told. Megaera’s stomach lurches with a jolt of renewed lust, and her mouth opens unthinkingly to order him forward again before she snaps it shut. Blood and darkness, what is he turning her into?

She looks away from him, and from the corner of her eye she sees that he takes the hint and averts his gaze as well as she wipes herself clean. Her skin is still buzzing with sensation and with the desire for more, but she wills herself to calm. By the time she finishes cleaning herself and pulls her leggings into place, she has almost put her thoughts back in order.

“Zagreus,” she says, and the prince looks her way. Meeting his eyes makes her stomach turn over again. His gaze is soft and pliable but with a steel core of focus aimed squarely at her. With an internal shiver, Megaera puts words to the expression: he is willing to take anything from her, but he is determined to have _something_. And in this moment, she doesn’t know how to continue. There are images in her mind—things she’d like to do to him, ways she’d like to see him respond to her treatment, sounds she’d like to hear him make—but they’re all jumbled together in a mess of instinct and spite and curiosity, and she doesn’t know which ones are appropriate or even _logical_. He has it easy, she thinks bitterly; all _he_ has to do receive her attentions. He doesn’t have to generate the ideas himself and pretend cold confidence as he guesses his way forward. He just has to wait for her to act.

But right now, she does not act on him. 

She tosses the towel towards the edge of the room (where all of Zagreus’s _other_ discarded clothes seem to reside) and fixes him with a cool glare. “Seems like I was wrong,” she says, though her tone is possessive instead of humble. “You’ve improved quite a bit.” 

She expects him to be embarrassed. Or, if he knows no shame, she expects him to be smug about his improvement, about what he won from her. He is neither. The intensity melts from his gaze, replaced by what Megaera can only read as genuine delight. “You see,” he said, “I told you I could learn.” 

“…Hmph.”

 _Show me what else you’ve learned_. The sentence blooms in Megaera’s head, a fully formed thought before she even realizes she’s having it, but she doesn’t let it cross her lips. It would be an order—it _sounds_ like an order and she could make it ring as one without effort—but it would mean putting herself in his hands again, and that isn’t how this is supposed to work. He is supposed to be subject to _her_. Isn’t that the game they’ve chosen to play? 

To the extent that they’ve made any choice at all. Maybe the problem here is that neither of them have _chosen_ this, only been dragged along by the urges of their bodies and the confluence of their desires. This isn’t what they’re supposed to be to each other. With sudden, intrusive clarity, Megaera remembers Lord Hades’ face as he shouldered her with this task, the dismissive disgust as he ordered her to do _something_ about his son. He never would have arranged this if he’d known she would find herself in this position, the prince kneeling for her not because she has squelched his immaturity but because he’s asking for her cruel treatment. Because they want each other.

She spends too long in silence. Zagreus shifts slightly, his knees probably beginning to ache, and he looks up at her with that same unassuming gaze of a moment before. “Megaera?” he says. “Is everything all right?” 

“Yes,” she says, although it’s more an easier way to say _shut up_ than it is the truth. 

He doesn’t seem to believe her, and he doesn’t, in fact, shut up. “OK,” he says hesitantly. Again he shifts, lifting one knee off the stone floor and then the other before settling back into place. “Did you want to keep going, then?” 

“…No.” 

The question is too straightforward and the answer is too obvious for Megaera to pretend otherwise. The moment has passed. And even though she could summon it back—even though she can tell that it would be _easy_ —she is too conscious, now, of everything she has not thought about. She should have used her time in Tartarus more wisely. She should have stopped trying to logic her way out of her desire for Zagreus and instead considered what it meant about what they would be to each other. She would have been better prepared, that way. 

“Get up, Zagreus,” she says, and offers him an arm to help him stand.

He pulls himself to his feet reluctantly and then lets go of her, as awkward now as he was when she arrived in his chambers. He searches Megaera’s face, but there are no answers there.

“Did I not do well?” he asks.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then, is something else wrong?” 

She scoffs. “I’m curious, what about this situation strikes you as _right_ to begin with?” It’s absurd the whole way through. They shouldn’t be doing this.

But his face falls, as if she’s hurt him. “You don’t…” He keeps looking for answers from her and she’s really not sure what he expects to find. He tries again to speak. “I’m enjoying this, Megaera, it’s the closest I’ve felt to you since all of this began. But… I guess maybe you feel differently?” 

“We’re different people, Zagreus. Obviously we’re going to feel different things.” 

“Right, obviously…” Rubbing his upper arm with the opposite hand, he asks, “So, could we talk about what we’re feeling? Maybe we could come to a consensus.”

“No.” The answer leaves Megaera’s lips at once, no need to think about it. “I don’t think there’s room for that kind of thing, between us.” 

“Between us,” he repeats, jaw gritted. She will give him credit: he is holding her stare without quailing, despite his obvious discomfort. “You mean, because of…” He gestures towards the door to the great hall rather than finishing his sentence.

“Yes. Because of that.” And they may not like it, but it’s not as though they’ve liked anything else about this so far. Why should that change now?

Zagreus stands in silent frustration for a moment, then shakes his head fiercely. “No. I won’t allow it. I don’t care if Father did set us up, he doesn’t get to decide what happens here between us. I thought I was going to hate you, I thought I’d hate you on purpose just to spite him, but now I’m seeing this side of you and seeing what we could be, and I think I—I could grow to like you, Megaera, or even—”

“Zagreus,” she interrupts sharply, because she has no interest in hearing the end of that sentence. She didn’t ask him to spew this honesty at her. She didn’t ask to bear witness to his burgeoning, youthful emotions. She is supposed to _reduce_ these outbursts from him, and even if she disagrees with Lord Hades about the necessity of the task, she knows her duty. She fixes the prince with a stare that is impervious to the raw emotion in his eyes. “No one is asking us to like each other.”

“Maybe _I’m_ asking you to like me, have you thought of that?” he snaps, his voice high with tension. His face is flushed. “At least entertain the possibility, Megaera, if we’re going to keep doing this! Is that really too much to ask?”

He doesn’t understand. He leaps from placing too much faith in their strange resonance and assuming she wants more than it makes any sense to want, to thinking that she cares for him not at all. At no point does he stop to consider practical concerns or the structures that are already in place around them. He is a fool if he thinks he is immune to it all; Megaera knows better.

She says, “ _If_ we’re going to keep doing this.”

Zagreus can’t hide the way his face crumbles, and for a moment he cannot respond. When he does open his mouth again, he speaks haltingly. “You don’t want to, then? You’d rather just go back to the way things were before?”

What a ridiculous question. Megaera can’t understand why he should even _want_ to continue, given the way she’s treating him right now. And besides, the answer, the _right_ answer, is obvious. She may be allowed—stopping just short of encouraged—to whip him, but she isn’t meant to give him what he wants. This is far outside the scope of her contract.

She knows exactly how she must respond, but she can’t make the words come out of her mouth. Zagreus watches her, and she stares back, and she keeps staring until she tames the lashing feeling in her chest.

“I’ll let you know,” is what she says then, and she turns and leaves his chambers. 

But thoughts of him trail after her, circling like bats, and refuse to leave her be.


	4. Chapter 4

So that’s it, he supposes. Megaera would rather do her job than interact with him as a person, so they’re going to go back to resentment and trying to best one another instead of—and it isn’t about the sex. It _isn’t_. Yes, she’s attractive, and yes, he wants her and wants the things she’s willing to do to him, but more than the way she touched him or even hurt him, he’s infuriated that she’s given up on the _connection_. For a little while, they were something other than what his father wants them to be. She looked at him not with boredom and superiority but with unquenchable fascination, and in response to that feeling—he would have sworn he could _feel_ it in the air—he’d been filled with a rushing curiosity about what she wanted with him. What did she see of him, when she looked at him like that? He’d wanted her to show him. And keep showing him. 

But apparently she only wants to see him as a job.

She leaves him alone for a few days, which she’ll probably insist he should be _grateful_ for: a chance to cool his head and disengage from both their argument and his own lust before she comes to bully him into mature behavior once more. Never mind whether _she’s_ mature. Like his father, she’s positioned herself as right and unquestionable and when she chases him down again—which she surely will—she’ll demand that he regard her as such. And he won’t have it. 

So, for those few days, he refuses to leave his room except for training, and he only goes to that because the thought of disappointing Achilles on top of everything else is too much to bear. If Achilles notices his dark mood, he does not mention it; instead he alternates their exercises between vigorously complex ones that allow Zagreus to expend his angry energy without time to dwell on its source and calmer ones meant to focus and renew the mind and body. He leaves the courtyard feeling restored. But back in his bedroom, his frustration creeps back in again like a miasma.

That’s where Megaera finds him when she comes looking. He’s working a stick of sealing-wax into a vague sort of self-portrait, for no particular purpose, and glares at her for the interruption when he answers the door.

“I’m busy,” he says, and tries to shut the door again. That is the point of _having_ a door, is it not? But Megaera holds it open despite his efforts.

“Your father wants you at dinner,” she says bluntly. “He sent me to make sure you arrive on time.” 

A bit of instinctual panic flares inside of him, because he _knows_ what his father will say if he’s late, but he shoves it down. “Well, he’s going to be disappointed, because if he wants me to be on time he should tell me more than a few minutes in advance.” He sends her a faux-gracious smile that involves far too many teeth. “In fact, you had better get going so that _you’re_ not late, Megaera. Making you lose face with my father is the last thing in the world I want.”

She answers with a sneer of disgust and they truly are right back to normal, aren’t they? “I’d lose face with your father if I showed up without you in tow, too,” she tells him. “But fortunately for us both, it’s not for an hour. You’ve got plenty of time to get ready.” 

Damn her. “Well, thank the Fates for that. I suppose you’re going to stand here looking over my shoulder the whole time?”

“I could come back if you prefer.” 

“I would prefer that! Get out.” He squashes his work-in-progress back into a formless lump and deposits it angrily on the shelf that serves as his headboard. Then he looks across the room to his mirror. He knows at a glance that his appearance is not up to his father’s standards, but too bad; he’s not in a mood to appease just now. All he does is comb his hair roughly with his fingers and then jam his laurels into place. They smolder with his resentment. Which he’s still very much feeling, because _Megaera has not left_.

He rounds on her. “Did you not hear—” he starts to say, but he stops when he sees her expression. It’s not her usual scorn. There is some kind of stifled conflict there, and that alone drains the bulk of his irritation too fast for him to hold.

As their eyes meet, Megaera lets out a noisy sigh. “Listen, Zag…” 

“Wait—” He looks at her in disbelief. “All of the sudden you think you have the right to call me by a nickname? _Now_?”

She peers at him. “It isn’t the first time I’ve called you that, though.”

“…It’s not?” 

“The last two times we were in here…” 

He stares, but she doesn’t seem to be trying to mislead him. “I… don’t remember that at all.”

“Well, it happened,” she snaps. “It isn’t my fault if you didn’t notice.” 

“No, I’m not saying it is, I just…” He doesn’t remember it at _all_. It’s all just a bright-humming jumbled mess of images and feeling, and— “I’m not sure I’m at my brightest when I’m like that, am I?”

A flicker of amusement crosses her face. “Definitely not. All your blood going to the wrong head, maybe?” 

He grunts. Well, it’s certainly going to the right head now, in the sense that an unpleasant flush is creeping up his neck. But he can’t let himself be distracted. “Megaera, if we’re not going to… indulge in that that, anymore, I’d appreciate if you didn’t tease me about it.”

A strange moment then as Megaera’s amusement vanishes. She searches his face briefly, then looks away. “Hmph.”

…OK, clearly he’s just said something wrong. Another awkward moment passes, and then Megaera turns towards the door. “I’ll come back for you, like I said—”

“Wait. Just—wait, Megaera.” He takes a few steps forward, stopping when she turns to face him once more. Her stare is guarded and demanding. He needs time to put his thoughts in order, but he isn’t going to get it, so he just speaks. “Did I get that wrong, just now? Don’t tell me you actually want to keep…” 

Her eyes burn with exasperation. “Why do you keep making me ask the same question over and over, Zagreus? What makes you think I’m _not_ interested?” 

That’s hardly fair. He looks at her, incredulous. “Well, there’s the argument we had last time, for one; you essentially told me it was inappropriate for us to have any feelings for each other that weren’t sanctioned by my father beforehand, and then you stormed out.”

“I needed time to think,” she says stiffly. “I told you that I’d let you know what conclusion I reached.”

“Well, I—you did say that, yes.” _He_ hasn’t spent this time thinking; he’s spent it sulking. Has he had it wrong? His head spins as he tries to update his understanding of her, of what happened, of what exists between the two of them. “So you’ve had a chance to think now. What is your conclusion, then?” 

She grimaces, scoffs. But when Zagreus does not retract his question, she retorts, “I’ve concluded that I want to continue exploring that form of interaction.” 

“You want to keep having sex,” Zagreus translates for her, deliberately blunt. 

She scowls. “It isn’t about the sex. I don’t need _you_ in order to get off, Zagreus.” 

But he’s already walking towards her again, and when he stops within arm’s reach of her the air changes. Because she’s right: it’s hardly about the sex at all. He could ask her to bed and even supposing that she acquiesced (which he suspects she would not), simple intercourse wouldn’t provide what they want from each other. 

They want _this_.

For a moment, though, they doubt each other. She searches his face for trickery and he almost bristles under her suspicion. But then she reaches out to test him. She cups one hand around the back of his neck, fingertips trailing up his vertebrae into the mess of his black hair, and then she curls her fingers and grabs a handful of hair at the back of his head. His breath catches at the sudden jolt of pain, but the rest of his body relaxes. Neither of them care when his laurels slip down over one ear.

Megaera speaks quietly, in a way that commands focus. “You know, before you decided to be so rude, I’d intended to ask you to my room after dinner to find out how many lashes you can actually take.”

“…Ah.” He swallows hard as a shaky wave of desire passes through him. But he doesn’t want to melt just yet. He closes his eyes for a moment, composing himself, and finds the wherewithal to attempt a teasing smirk even if he’s breathless when he speaks. “You know, Megaera, you might consider leading with that next time, rather than ‘I’ve come to do your father’s bidding.’”

She scoffs, immune to his mirth. “I still have my job to do.”

“I know, but…” Suddenly her hand in his hair feels uncomfortable; suddenly he has the same awkward feeling in his chest that he did last time. He moves his head a little, and she understands and releases him. He tries to find a way to say this that won’t result in a reprise of their fight. “Listen, I did mean what I said,” he says. “If we want to do this, I don’t want you thinking of me as just the stupid kid you’re contracted to deal with.”

“I know.” A shadow of conflict travels through her eyes again, though the rest of her face does not change. “Nothing’s going to erase that reality, Zag. It’s always going to be part of this.”

“But we can add to it, can’t we?” he suggests, hoping. “We can decide for ourselves what we feel about each other.”

A long pause. “We can try,” she says at last.

“I think we can do it.”

She snorts. “Than always said you were an optimist.” She half-turns away from him, brushing the lock of hair that she leaves free of her ponytail out of her eyes. “…I’ve lost track of time. Are you ready to go?”

“Technically, yes.”

She narrows her eyes, confused. “What do you mean, ‘technically’?”

A grin—nervous, but sincere—creeps up his face. “Well, you know, we don’t _have_ to go to dinner. I’ve skipped plenty of Father’s banquets. If you wanted to go straight to your chambers—”

“We’re going to dinner, Zag,” she says, but under her decisiveness he hears amusement in her tone.

With an indulgent sigh, he straightens his laurels and takes one last look at himself in the mirror. Then he looks her way again.

“Since we’re doing nicknames now,” he says, “does that mean I get to call you Meg?”

She considers him. Then a smirk comes into her eyes. “That depends on how much you can take from me later,” she says, and oh, he’ll take quite a _lot_ if it means she’ll keep talking to him like that. The connection, the resonance is coming back. They might be able to pull this off.

“You know,” he says, flirting on purpose now, “this is all going to make it _very_ difficult to focus at dinner.”

“If you’re looking for sympathy, you won’t get it from me,” she says, flirting back.

“Just as I’d expect from a Fury.”

And, sharing their private joke, they leave his chambers for the dining hall.


	5. Chapter 5

After dinner, and after the rest—after she brings Zagreus to her chambers and ties him to the post she appropriated from Tartarus; after she gives him twenty lashes (twice what she planned on and still not, apparently, the limit of what he can take); after she jerks him off while he’s still tied, reaching around him from behind and feeling his body buck against hers as he moans; after she frees him and he puts his mouth on her again and brings her to orgasm twice in quick succession—

After all of that, he flops down onto her bed, presumptuously content, lying on his stomach such that she is treated to a view of the red welts on his back beginning to turn to mottled purple-green. She observes him for a moment. His choice to lie down cannot be a completely unthinking one; he’s dangling his feet off the edge of the bed so that he doesn’t scorch her sheets which are, unlike his, not fireproof. (Something to think about.) It must be a conscious choice, then, to lie there without asking her permission. She isn’t angry, though. She is considering him. So this is what he’s like when he’s not being hounded at every moment towards behaviors that he has not chosen for himself. He’s more pleasant to be around. And is that so surprising?

She places one hand on the arch of his foot in silent curiosity. It is hot to the touch, almost too hot to bear, and it seems that it lacks sensation; he doesn’t respond to the slight rasp of her nails against his skin until she reaches his ankle. Then he twitches and gives a soft, encouraging grunt. She traces up the back of his leg, noticing what makes him twitch further—the soft skin behind his knee, the way she dips slightly towards his inner thigh. She skims her fingertips over his ass, and then she reaches his back and the evidence of her attentions blooming there. For a moment, she hesitates. Then, swiftly and firmly, she presses the butt of her hand into the marked skin. Zagreus moans haggardly, breathing deep with his throat to draw strength from the corners of his body. For a moment, she does not let up. Then she does, trailing her fingertips over the skin instead. He breathes out, his body relaxing.

“You’re bruising,” she tells him, in case that hadn’t made her point.

“Mm,” he responds, unthinking at first; then his eyes fly open and he looks her way. “Ah,” he says, realizing what that means. “That’s… unfortunate.”

She sends him a sympathetic wince, but it’s not like she has a solution for him. “How quickly do you usually heal?” she asks.

“Within a day, when it comes to training with Achilles, but I don’t know if this will be the same…”

“I guess we’ll find out. Rest here, for now.” Pressing lightly on the spot between his shoulder blades, she encourages him to relax again. The halls are not crawling with servants at _all_ hours, but the distance from her chambers to his is great enough that she doesn’t want to risk his being seen.

He sinks back onto her mattress willingly, and she falls back into contemplation. The bruises are one reason she refused to whip him any further than she did. That, and the fact that she’s still stunned he is this hungry for pain at all. She keeps expecting him to turn on her. This can’t last, surely.

Under the gentle weight of her hand, he breathes steadily. She assumes sleep is claiming him, but a few minutes later, he says, “Meg?”

The nickname. Yes, she’ll grant him the right to use it. There’s an unfamiliar familiarity to it, and it feels warm. (Much warmer than when Alecto says it, and she’s the only other person who’s ever dared.)

“Yes?” she prompts, when he doesn’t follow the name with any further comment.

“Oh, I just… wanted to try it out,” he says sheepishly, and she scoffs. Silence for a moment. Then he inhales in that about-to-speak way. “Actually, Meg, I… I did want to say something.”

“Hm.”

His eyes open and find hers. Raw with want, they are unbreakable and hopelessly vulnerable at once. It feels like they carve a hole in her chest.

“I want this to work,” he says, his voice tentative. “Us, I mean. Like this, rather than… whatever Father is looking for.”

She is silent. She does not tell him that she wants that, too, even though for days she tried to escape that conclusion and failed. She hates his petty obstinacy, his irresponsibility; but there is something different she sees in him like this that she is drawn to. She wants to keep uncovering it. She wants to make him understand that his childish defensiveness is not so necessary all the time. But does she even have the right to make that claim, given what she is meant to be in his life?

He is still looking to her for a response, and she doesn’t have one to give him.

“We’ll see what the Fates have in store for us,” she says, and they leave the conversation there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In conclusion, I'm sorry there is so little porn in my five-chapter porn one-shot. They had a lot to talk about. ...Technically, they have more to talk about than even this, but if they talked about _everything_ , they wouldn't have to go through breaking up, now would they? 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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